Vol. XVII, No. 29
Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019 http://colleagueslist.blogspot/.ca http://colleagueslistii.blogspot.com
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Dear Friends:
I write a brief meditation on what it means to be connected to soil and lawn at this time of year. Hopefully, this connects with many of you.
Hopefully, you will find other parts of this letter of help to you too.
Please note - If a link below seems to be dead, cut and paste it into the address bar at the top of your web page and it should work.
Wayne
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SPECIAL ITEM
A REFLECTION ON THE EARTH AT SPRINGTIME
The following note was sent to the people of St. David's Church, my local Christian community - and I would like to share it with you now...
Dear Friends:
Holy is the soil we walk on,
Holy everything that grows,
Holy all, beneath the surface,
Holy every stream that flows,
May new life emerge within you this spring,
and may you see that it too, is holy.
Blessings from the St. David's staff (all signatures).
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Marlene and I spend a lot of time and energy preparing our yard and gardens during these weeks of springtime. It is something we cherish, and - while we may not always think about our activities in spiritual terms - that is not far removed from what we actually think and do.
Over the years, Marlene has invested much in her gardens. Before we met and married I yearned to live in a place that had a yard I could mow.
Garden and yard have continued to provide spiritual reserves for us from spring through autumn of each year that we have been together and we have continued doing this for a score of years.
As we grow older, we wonder if we will have the energy to continue our earthly tasks. So far, we have been able to do so.
Perhaps, after reading the poem quoted above, we might be asking the wrong question. It might be wiser for us to ask - are we spiritually strong enough to remain connected to the efforts of garden and yard? If this connection is no longer possible - with what might we replace it?
I thank God for this timely reminder.
Wayne
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COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Elfrieda Schroeder, Winnipeg, MB.
"April Fool's Month"
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Jim Taylor, Okanagan, BC
"The Gap Between Cause and Correspondence"
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Ron Rolheiser, San Antonio, TX
"Spirituality - A Place Where All Believers Can Come Together"
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Mark Whittall, Ottawa, ON.
"The Recognition Problem"
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NET NOTES
REQUIEM FOR UKRAINE
Catholic Register, Toronto, May 6th, 2022
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EASTER HOPE RISES IN UKRAINE
Catholic Register, Toronto, April 28th, 2022
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RUSSIAN PROTESTANTS PRAY FOR UKRAINE
It is a Dangerous Stance in the Larger Community
Christian Week, Christian Media, April 29th, 2022
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WHY IS THE CHURCH FAILING IN THE WEST?
Many Signs Point Downward
Religion News Service, May 10th, 2022
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ROE VS WADE CAN'T CHANGE CANADA'S LAWS
But U.S. Demise Will Create a "Feast for Lawyers"
Catholic Register, Toronto, May 11th, 2022
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OBERAMMERGAU PASSION PLAY ENTERS NEW ERA
It is no longer a Capital of Anti-Semitism
Religion News Service, May 9th, 2022
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CANADIANS SUPPORTIVE OF HOW GOVERNMENT
IS HANDLING THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE
Angus Reid Institute, May 9th, 2022
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CANTERBURY'S APOLOGY TO CANADA'S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Anglican Journal, May 2nd, 2022
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POPE FRANCIS SERVES AS AN EXAMPLE FOR ALL ELDERLY
He Proves that Old People Have Lives Worth Living
Crux, May 11th, 2022
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TO STOP RUSSIAN MANIPULATION,
FRANCIS MUST MAKE VATICAN STANCE CLEAR
National Catholic Reporter, May 9th, 2022
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WISDOM OF THE WEEK
Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:
May the God who mothers each of us be a source of life for all who long for hope.
- Emmy Kegler- Randy Woodley
- Amy Carmichael
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We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change; but, in addition to being angry, I'm also hopeful. Because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to make and remake themselves for the better.
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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The chief biblical analogy for baptism is not the water that washes but the flood that drowns. Discipleship is more than turning over a new leaf. It is more fitful and disorderly than gradual moral formation. Nothing less than daily, often painful, lifelong death will do. So Paul seems to know not whether to call what happened to him on the Damascus Road “birth” or “death” – it felt like both at the same time.
There is often more wisdom to be found at the edges of life than in its middle. Life-threatening illness may shuffle our values like a deck of cards. Sometimes a card that has been on the bottom of the deck for most of our lives turns out to be the top card, the thing that really matters. Having watched people sort their cards and play their hands in the presence of death for many years, I would say that rarely is the top card perfection, or possessions, or even pride. Most often the top card is love.
- Rachel Naomi Remen
That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; but that God could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents forever. Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point – and does not break.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one...Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.
C.S. Lewis
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I understand more than that. I understand that God does not wish people to live apart, and therefore he does not reveal to them what each one needs for himself; but he wishes them to live united, and therefore reveals to each of them what is necessary forI knew before that God gave life to humankind and desires that they should live; now all. I now understand that though it seems to people that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love is in God, and God is in him, for God is love.
- Leo Tolstoy
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Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little child, you pass by with ugly and spiteful words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, revolting and godless, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don’t know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. Love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labor. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but forever.
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